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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951841">One Hundred</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainbowElectric/pseuds/TheRainbowElectric'>TheRainbowElectric</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Protective Andrew Minyard, canon divergent scene, content warnings for all the canon-typical trauma, handwavy medical setting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:33:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29951841</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainbowElectric/pseuds/TheRainbowElectric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>The most shocking thing about the sight of Neil is how still he is.</p>
  <p>Andrew has seen Neil bloodied and bruised before. But even beaten to a pulp and beyond exhausted, Neil talks and twitches and <em>kicks</em> in his sleep, restless fucker.</p>
  <p>Now, Neil’s only signs of life are the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the steady beep of the heart monitor beside his bed. That’s all Andrew has to hold onto as he drags a chair from beside the window to the gap between Neil’s bed and the door and sits down.</p>
</blockquote>Andrew breaks into Neil's hospital room after Baltimore. (Inspired by <a href="https://himawarrior.tumblr.com/post/641231220634681344/this-is-my-contribution-to-a-zine-when-i-first">this artwork</a> by @himawarrior)
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>578</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>One Hundred</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Sorry if there are some details that aren't exactly canon compliant; I haven't reread TKM in a bit.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The most shocking thing about the sight of Neil is how still he is.</p><p>Andrew has seen Neil bloodied and bruised before. But even beaten to a pulp and beyond exhausted, Neil talks and twitches and <em>kicks</em> in his sleep, restless fucker.</p><p>Now, Neil’s only signs of life are the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the steady beep of the heart monitor beside his bed. That’s all Andrew has to hold onto as he drags a chair from beside the window to the gap between Neil’s bed and the door and sits down.</p><p>Andrew needs a cigarette. He wipes a hand down his face and taps one out of the pack to twirl between his fingers as he catalogs Neil’s mummified arms, taped-up face, and the bruises visible around the bandages. All the gruesome evidence of Andrew’s failure.</p><p>Andrew does not like it when people break their promises. He likes it even less when he can’t keep his own. He tells himself that, technically, Neil rendered their deal void as soon as he decided to hide the countdown texts. Somehow, that does nothing to settle the sick sensation churning in Andrew’s stomach.</p><p>He wants to sink a knife into something. Someone, anyone who let this happen to Neil, maybe himself included.</p><p>Renee took Andrew’s knives on the bus, after Andrew throttled Kevin. He is sure the others assumed it was for the team’s safety, but Andrew knew better. He knew that Renee could see what Neil’s disappearance had done to him, and how close Andrew was to taking the easiest possible distraction: the good kind of pain — physical and finite and entirely under Andrew’s control.</p><p>Renee was right to take the knives. Andrew did not give them up easily, of course. But when Andrew is in the mood to break something, trust Renee to be unbreakable.</p><p>She sat silently beside Andrew all three hours to Baltimore. She stood silently beside him in a shitty motel room while the Foxes debated what to do, until Wymack got a call from the FBI at three in the morning. And then she silently led Andrew outside, where she called him a cab and directed the driver to the hospital where Andrew would find Neil — alive.</p><p>Neil is alive.</p><p>Andrew repeats this fact to himself, because even with the proof right in front of him, it does not feel quite real.</p><p>Maybe that’s because Andrew can’t feel much of anything right now. From the second he spotted Neil’s duffel lying on the pavement outside the Bearcat stadium, and that first torrent of fear and fury rushed through him, Andrew was overfull of feeling. Flooded with so much panic and anger that not even Andrew, with all his years of practice, could tamp it down. He could barely keep his head above it until Wymack got off the phone with the feds.</p><p>After that, Andrew was so drained that he barely remembers the cab ride to the hospital, where he slipped in a side door past an exhausted nurse stepping out for a smoke break and snuck into Neil’s room past the agent dozing in a chair out in the hall.</p><p>Or maybe this does not feel real yet because Neil is still so <em>still</em>. Neil Josten is kinetic. Always running. Always picking fights. Always prying into other people’s problems and making them his own. Always, intentionally or not, becoming the center of attention.</p><p>“<em>You might actually turn out to be interesting</em>,” Andrew told Neil once. Whatever Neil’s other failings, he has always been that. Andrew has not known a moment’s peace since they met, not even now that Neil’s past has finally caught up to him and he has lived to tell the tale.</p><p>If he chooses to tell it.</p><p>Until a few hours ago, Andrew thought he already knew the truth about Neil’s pre-Palmetto life. For weeks, Neil led Andrew to believe that he knew Neil better than any other living person. Just yesterday, Neil spent hours filling Andrew in on the more mundane details of his life on the run, seemingly just for the sake of giving Andrew a more complete picture.</p><p>Turns out, all of Neil’s supposed confessions were half-truths at best.</p><p>Andrew spent most of the bus ride to Baltimore replaying conversations with Neil in his head, crosschecking Neil's accounts with the new information that Andrew had choked out of Kevin. About half an hour out from Baltimore, Andrew’s brain had snagged on one piece of the previous afternoon.</p><p>
  <em>“You’ve been a lot of places,” Andrew said, side-eying Neil, who had finally gotten tired of talking over the back of his seat and claimed the spot beside Andrew without permission.</em>
</p><p><em>“I’ve been </em>through<em> a lot of places,” Neil said.</em></p><p>
  <em>“There’s a difference?” Andrew said, even though he knew there was.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Neil shrugged, and he was sitting close enough that the movement of his sweatshirt rustled the sleeve of Andrew’s own. “Super 8s and WalMart parking lots look the same everywhere.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Even in Prague,” Andrew said skeptically. </em>
</p><p><em>Neil smiled wryly. “Okay, no. But even abroad, I didn’t really experience most of the places I stayed. It was too dangerous to make friends, or visit crowded places like tourist spots. I was surviving, but a lot of the time I didn’t really feel </em>alive<em> — not the way I do now, you know?”</em></p><p>Andrew did know. It was disturbing how <em>known</em> Neil made him feel. Known enough that Andrew offered Neil a few stories of his own about growing up in the armpit of California, assuming those memories were quid pro quo.</p><p>And now, Andrew comes to find out that he never really knew Neil at all.</p><p>Andrew should be furious with Neil for all the lies. He wants to be. He probably will be, later. But Andrew has no energy for it right now. So instead, he allows himself to be numbed by the rhythmic beeps of the heart monitor and the muted light of the hospital room, and watches Neil sleep.</p><p>Sometime later, Neil’s hair scratches softly against the pillow, and Andrew, who has been nodding off with his chin propped on one hand, sits up. He watches Neil blink slowly up at the ceiling, before his gaze slides over to Andrew and — Andrew’s heart unexpectedly stutters.</p><p>He never expected to be arrested by those blue eyes again. But here Neil is, staring at Andrew, as usual, tired and confused but impossibly <em>alive</em>.</p><p>Neil silently observes Andrew for one, two, three blinks before saying, “Are you a side-effect of the drugs?”</p><p>Because apparently, even fresh out of the E.R. and dosed-up on painkillers, Neil Josten cannot help but be an unbelievable smart-ass.</p><p>That, finally, shakes something loose in Andrew that allows him to breathe properly for the first time in six hours. “I hate you,” he sighs.</p><p>“No, no,” Neil says. “Your line is, ‘I’m not a hallucination.’” He tries to grin, but it must tug something painful on the damaged side of his face, because Neil drops the expression quickly with a wince. He reaches up as though to touch the bandages on his cheek, but his hand catches with a clatter on the handcuff locking him to the bedrail.</p><p>Andrew is ready with a dry comment about how even a fed useless enough to fall asleep on duty can tell what a flight risk Neil is — but Andrew is interrupted by the beep of Neil’s heart monitor ratcheting up. Andrew stares at Neil staring down at the handcuff with wild eyes, and thinks of the rings of bruises Neil wore around his wrists after he returned from Evermore.</p><p>Ah, fuck.</p><p>Neil yanks at the cuff around his bandaged arm again and whimpers loud enough for Andrew to hear over the rapidfire beeps of his accelerating heart rate.</p><p>“Abram,” Andrew says sharply.</p><p>Neil’s eyes snap up to Andrew’s, full of a pained panic that twists Andrew’s stomach.</p><p>Andrew leans forward to take hold of Neil’s unbandaged cheek with one hand and press his other to Neil’s chest. Neil takes quick, jerky gulps of air under Andrew’s palm, but he does not pull the cuff again, and he does not take his eyes off Andrew’s.</p><p>“Calm down,” Andrew orders. “I will unlock it. Okay?”</p><p>Neil turns his face into Andrew’s hand, and he emits another, softer sound of distress, but he nods. Andrew waits several seconds for Neil to get his breathing and his heartbeat under better control before taking away his hands. He makes quick work of the handcuffs using a paperclip from his pocket, first picking the lock around Neil’s wrist, then the one around the bedrail so that the handcuffs drop to the floor. Andrew kicks them under the bed, out of sight.</p><p>Neil pulls his newly freed wrist to his chest and cradles his hand under his chin. “Thanks,” he murmurs.</p><p>Andrew slips the paperclip back in his pocket, then bends over to collect the cigarette he dropped on the floor. He puts that away too, in case he needs his hands again. When he looks up, Neil is watching him carefully.</p><p>“How did you find me?” Neil says.</p><p>“FBI,” Andrew says.</p><p>“What did they tell you?”</p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>“What do you know?”</p><p>“Everything Kevin does.”</p><p>Neil looks down at his hands. “Do you hate me?” he says.</p><p>Does Andrew hate Neil? Andrew hates that Neil lied to him. Andrew hates that he seems to give way more fucks about Neil’s safety than Neil does. Andrew hates that, without fully realizing it, he has allowed himself to get so ridiculously, irreparably attached. But does Andrew hate <em>Neil</em>?</p><p>“No more than I hated you before,” Andrew says.</p><p>Neil’s eyes cut up to Andrew’s, narrow and assessing. He regards Andrew warily for a moment, before the corner of his mouth twitches. “Am I at ninety-four yet?” he says, tone just on the edge of teasing. Testing the waters.</p><p>“You are at one hundred.”</p><p>Andrew watches, satisfied, as that simple ritual eases the tension from Neil’s posture and expression. Neil’s huffed exhale is almost a laugh — although Andrew quickly snuffs out the levity by asking, “What happened to your face?”</p><p>Andrew does not particularly want to know, but he needs to. Without concrete detail, Andrew’s imagination can run in dark directions and arrive at endless horrific possibilities.</p><p>Neil grimaces. “Dashboard lighter.”</p><p>Andrew very carefully does not react. “And here?” he says, picking up one of Neil’s hands to stop it from clenching the blanket in his lap.</p><p>“More of the same,” Neil says, watching Andrew’s fingers carefully handle his own. “And — and knives.”</p><p>Andrew allows himself two full seconds to experience the extent of his rage before stowing the emotion in the back of his mind. It will not do him any good now. Andrew will take it out later, when he is sparring with Renee or smashing Exy balls at Strikers.</p><p>“Hey, at least I won’t look much like my old man anymore,” Neil says with a humorless laugh. “That’s a plus.”</p><p>Andrew only worked out that particular hangup of Neil’s a few hours ago, after he Googled Nathan Wesninski and saw a photo of Neil’s father. Andrew always assumed that Neil’s brown contacts were just part of his (truly awful) efforts to stay in incognito. But Andrew understands now that Neil must have worn his contacts the way Andrew wears his armbands — to hide the painful past from himself as much as anyone else. And Andrew made Neil abandon them.</p><p>He will get busy berating himself for that one later.</p><p>“Where is your father now?” Andrew says.</p><p>“Dead,” Neil says. “My uncle executed him.”</p><p>Pity. Andrew would have enjoyed killing Nathan Wesninski. Not quickly, the way Andrew dealt with Tilda. Slowly, piece by piece, the way Nathan would have dealt with Neil.</p><p>Having Nathan out of the way does simplify Andrew’s priorities, though. There is nowhere he needs to be except with Neil.</p><p>That is fortunate, as Andrew and Neil have several important things to sort out. For starters: “You knew he was coming for you,” Andrew says.</p><p>Neil shifts uncomfortably. “You found the messages.”</p><p>“Obviously.”</p><p>At first, Andrew assumed they were from Riko. A daily countdown to kidnap seemed exactly like Riko’s brand of melodramatic supervillain bullshit. But then Andrew and Kevin had found the phone call from a 443 number timestamped mere minutes before Neil disappeared. Kevin had blanched, and Andrew’s brain had short-circuited with rage at the realization that Kevin knew something Andrew didn’t.</p><p>“I thought I could handle it,” Neil says.</p><p>“You thought you <em>had</em> to handle it,” Andrew corrects, because Neil was clearly doing nothing to handle the situation besides hide it. “Even though I <em>told</em> you after Evermore to come to me when someone comes for you.”</p><p>“And I told you to let me go.”</p><p>“And I refused,” Andrew snaps. “We had a deal.”</p><p>“It was a shitty deal,” Neil shoots back.</p><p>“And yet, still a deal,” Andrew says, “which you broke. You lied to me.”</p><p>Neil’s shoulders hunch. “I didn’t lie,” he says weakly. “I just didn’t tell you.”</p><p>No, it was not <em>just</em> that. Neil didn’t tell Andrew, but he kissed Andrew anyway. He accepted the keys to Andrew’s car, promised to give Andrew anything if he shut out Binghamton, called the house in Columbia <em>home</em>. He talked about traveling for spring break and moving to Colorado after graduation and allowed Andrew to imagine himself into those futures.</p><p>So many moments in the last few weeks felt like the beginning of something to Andrew, and now he knows they could not possibly have meant the same to Neil, if Neil had already accepted that his days were numbered.</p><p>“You should have told me,” Andrew says.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you?”</p><p>“You know why.”</p><p>Andrew does, because unfortunately, he knows Neil. Which means he also knows that Neil has not one iota of regret about keeping his impending demise a secret.</p><p>The problem with Neil Josten is that despite his fierce survival instinct, he has an aggravating tendency to see himself as more disposable than other people. It is a strange juxtaposition that makes him impossible to anticipate. The same way Neil simultaneously gravitates toward and holds himself apart from the Foxes, fears and taunts the Moriyamas, tries to blend in while constantly stepping into the spotlight.</p><p>Neil often seems like he is trying to be several different people at once. Perhaps a consequence of pretending to be so many different people before.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Neil says.</p><p>“Do not tell me that you’re sorry,” Andrew says. “Tell me that you will never lie to me — or hide anything from me — like this again. Because if you do, we are done. This is over.”</p><p>Andrew is dead serious about that. He has made more exceptions for Neil Josten than he has for anyone else in his life, besides Cass. But even Andrew knows his limits. He may have a self-destructive streak, but he is not, actually, a masochist.</p><p>Neil swallows, and seems to need a moment to unstick his throat before he says, “I thought there was no <em>this</em>.”</p><p>Andrew sighs. Of course Neil would have to be difficult about this.</p><p>“Then you’re an even bigger fool than I gave you credit for,” Andrew says.</p><p>Neil stares at Andrew, expression shifting from surprised to satisfied to smug. But before he can make some smart aleck comment, the smirk spreading across his face makes him wince again. “Ouch,” Neil mutters, reaching for the bandages on his cheek.</p><p>Andrew lays two fingers at the crook of Neil’s elbow, just above the gauze. “Don’t.”</p><p>Neil obediently drops his hand and reaches for Andrew instead. Andrew permits him to interlock their fingers, keeping his grip loose.</p><p>Andrew waits for Neil to answer his previous demand for honesty, but Neil is apparently distracted by the sight of their linked hands, staring down at them with the shadow of a smile still lingering on his face. Andrew cups Neil’s cheek to reclaim his attention. “No more lies,” he says.</p><p>Neil leans into Andrew’s hand and closes his eyes. Andrew knows exactly how much this is asking of Neil — and he hates that he has to ask it when Neil already looks so raw and vulnerable against the sterile white sheets of the hospital bed. Andrew suddenly and fiercely wishes they were back in Fox Tower, under Neil's comforter, where Neil could curl up against Andrew's chest and press his face against Andrew's throat, safely hidden away among the comforts of familiarity. But this cannot wait.</p><p>At length, Neil opens his eyes to meet Andrew’s and says, “No more lies.”</p><p>Andrew nods and brushes his thumb across the soft skin under Neil’s eye. Neil turns into Andrew’s hand to press a kiss against the center of his palm — a small starburst of sensation that blooms across Andrew’s hand and up his arm, setting all his nerves alight.</p><p>The gesture is so acutely tender that part of Andrew recoils from it. The part that, even yesterday, might have yanked his hand back or shoved Neil away.</p><p>Nearly losing Neil changes things.</p><p>Realizing that Neil was gone was sort of like going up onto the roof of Fox Tower. Sometimes, Andrew forgets how much he wants to be alive until the other option is staring up at him from five stories below. Andrew did not realize how much he wanted — <em>needed</em> Neil, until faced with Neil’s awful, gaping absence. Now, it is all Andrew can do to stay sitting in this chair and touch Neil with only his hands. Andrew could no more pull away from Neil now than he could step off a roof’s edge.</p><p>“They’ll want to know everything anyway,” Neil says, laying his hand atop Andrew’s to press it back to his face. “The FBI. Do you want to be there when I tell them?”</p><p>“Do you want me there?”</p><p>“It would save me the trouble of repeating myself,” Neil says. “If I have to tell you anyway.”</p><p>“No,” Andrew says firmly. “You don’t.”</p><p>Whatever honesty Neil owes Andrew about his life now, Neil’s pre-Palmetto history is his to divulge on his own terms. And whatever trauma Neil dredges up for federal agents in an interrogation room will not be willingly traded; it will be forcefully extracted, and it sickens Andrew to imagine himself there against Neil’s will.</p><p>“What if — what if I wanted to tell you?” Neil says.</p><p>The careful openness in his voice sets an ache in Andrew’s chest.</p><p>“Then I would listen,” Andrew says.</p><p>Neil swallows heavily, and his hands tighten around Andrew’s. “I want you there,” Neil says, quiet but sure.</p><p>“Then I will be there.” There is not a force that could stop him.</p><p>Neil smiles again and looks ready to say something else, but is cut off by a yawn that makes him cringe.</p><p>“You should sleep,” Andrew says. The FBI's interrogation is likely to be long. Twenty-two cities is a lot of ground to cover.</p><p>Neil must be exhausted, because he puts up no argument. “Will you stay?” he says.</p><p>As long as Neil will let him. “Do you want me to?”</p><p>“I always want you to stay,” Neil says, so excruciatingly earnest that Andrew grimaces. “Hey, you’re the one who told me to be honest,” Neil adds, altogether too pleased with himself.</p><p>“I said don’t <em>lie</em> to me, not say — ” things that reach inside Andrew's chest and <em>squeeze</em>.</p><p>Neil smirks.</p><p>“Shut up,” Andrew says.</p><p>Neil smirks wider. Andrew hopes it hurts.</p><p>“If you’re staying, come up here,” Neil says, patting the mattress beside him.</p><p>"Don't tell me what to do," Andrew says, even as he kicks off his shoes and climbs in beside Neil.</p><p>Neil turns sideways to curl into Andrew as much as possible without dislodging his IV, and ends up with his bent knees resting over Andrew’s outstretched legs, one wrecked hand fisted in Andrew’s shirt, uninjured cheek pillowed on Andrew’s shoulder. Andrew loops an arm around Neil’s back to steady him.</p><p>“Comfortable?” Andrew says dryly, because it really cannot be.</p><p>“Yes,” Neil says, and presses closer.</p><p>Andrew looks down at the hand that Neil has twisted in the fabric over his heart and hates that his next thought is how long Neil will be sidelined for his injuries, and how unbearable he is going to be about it. Fucking Neil and Kevin, giving even <em>Andrew</em> Exy tunnel vision. They have been away from Columbia for too long. Andrew wants to go home.</p><p>He wants to take Neil with him.</p><p>“Thank you,” Neil murmurs. “For coming.”</p><p>“Don’t thank me.”</p><p>“Don’t dismiss my gratitude.”</p><p>“It is misplaced.”</p><p>Andrew came here as much for himself as he did for Neil — maybe more. It’s not like Andrew is doing much for Neil, here. His presence is too little, too late.</p><p>Andrew does not know how to be… <em>this</em>. The person who holds Neil after all the violence is over. Violence Andrew can do. Andrew protects by attacking. But the urge to knife anyone who so much as looks at Neil wrong does Andrew no good while sitting in a hospital bed with Neil tucked against his side.</p><p>It seems wrong for someone like Andrew to be the one swiping his thumb across Neil’s hipbone in time with the beep of his heart monitor, running the fingers of his other hand over Neil’s knuckles to make him relax his death grip on Andrew’s shirt, pulling Neil closer when the sound of the HVAC system kicking on makes Neil flinch.</p><p>At the same time, the thought of anyone else sitting here with Neil in Andrew’s place is anathema to him.</p><p>As though following Andrew’s train of thought, Neil says, “How are the others?”</p><p>It is hard to care about anyone else when Neil’s hair is rough against Andrew’s cheek and his breath is light against Andrew’s collarbone, but the concern in Neil’s voice demands attention. “Fine,” Andrew says. “No one was severely injured in the riot. The Foxes are staying at a motel in town.”</p><p>Andrew would have expected Neil to be relieved, but Neil’s fingers twitch anxiously in Andrew’s. “My father’s people started that riot,” Neil says, voice heavy with guilt. “I put everyone in danger.”</p><p>Andrew considers that. “You could not have anticipated your father’s plan,” he says. “And the Foxes have all gotten worse injuries on the court.”</p><p>Again, Andrew expects Neil to be mollified, but he remains silent. Andrew waits.</p><p>“They know the truth now, or at least part of it,” Neil says, and turns his face into Andrew’s shoulder. “What if they don't — want me anymore?"</p><p>Andrew thinks of Boyd’s manic pacing up and down the bus, Renee in the seat beside him with her prayer beads out, Nicky close to tears.</p><p>Sometimes, Andrew really does think Neil’s learning curve is a horizontal line.</p><p>“I am amazed that I was not followed here,” Andrew says. “Not that it would have been very hard to sneak seven people in here, apparently.”</p><p>Neil exhales sharply through his nose in amusement. “Yeah, probably. I’m glad you came alone, though.”</p><p>A tightening in Andrew’s throat makes it impossible to respond.</p><p>“I didn’t think I’d ever get this again,” Neil admits quietly, enclosing Andrew’s hand in both of his own. “I thought I was saying goodbye.”</p><p>Andrew does not have to ask what Neil means. He can picture the scene with sharp, crystal clarity. He knew something was wrong as soon as Neil stepped into the locker room lobby. Not because of the security guards flanking Neil on either side, but because of the expression on Neil’s face.</p><p>Neil is at his most unruly after Exy games — unhinged by a kind of gleeful fearlessness that makes him do stupid things like dress the Ravens down on live television, which makes Andrew want to do stupid things like kiss Neil on live television.</p><p>When Neil emerged from the showers after the Binghamton match, Andrew was prepared for Neil’s victory smile, searingly bright as the fucking sun. Maybe an annoying but tolerable argument between Kevin and Neil about how they could have played better. Maybe a snippet of eye contact that would tell Andrew whether Neil had the same ideas about how to run out their excess energy when they got home.</p><p>But when Neil actually entered the room where the rest of the Foxes were waiting, his movements were slow and stiff, his expression restrained. It was wrong. All wrong.</p><p>“<em>Hey, Neil</em>,” Nicky said, tone and expression lightly teasing, completely fucking oblivious. “<em>We were starting to think you drowned in there</em>.”</p><p>“<em>I’m sorry</em>,” Neil said, and his voice was wrong, too. All wrong.</p><p>Andrew was used to everyone around him missing the obvious, but it was still pretty goddamn remarkable that the Foxes proceeded to pack up their belongings around them, as though Neil were not clearly on the brink of a panic attack.</p><p>Andrew crossed the room to stand in front of Neil, who was plainly trying to maintain a neutral expression, but he was nowhere near as good as Andrew. The tightness around Neil’s eyes and the downturn of his mouth would have given him away, if the agitated clenching of his hands did not.</p><p>Andrew leveled Neil with a flat stare. Andrew has never exactly been a bastion of emotional stability, but he has found that when Neil is upset or frightened, he clings to a steady gaze like a life raft in a storm.</p><p>When Neil opened his mouth, Andrew was braced for his usual “<em>I’m fine</em>” bullshit. Andrew was not ready for, “<em>Thank you. You were amazing</em>.”</p><p>Just what the fuck was <em>that</em> supposed to mean?</p><p>Andrew was so blindsided that he could not formulate a response before Wymack shunted them all out of the locker room.</p><p>Andrew knew that Neil could not have been thanking him for closing out the goal, because Neil had spoken with the same awful sincerity as “<em>if it means losing you, then no</em>” and “<em>I want to go back for you</em>” and all Neil's other horrible little one-liners that have left Andrew feeling turned inside-out. But Andrew could not fathom what Neil was thanking him for, much less why he needed to do it then, in the damp-smelling locker room lobby surrounded by a dozen other people.</p><p>It was not until Andrew was sitting on the bus to Baltimore beside Renee, one riot and one paradigm-altering revelation later, that Andrew realized Neil had given Andrew his final words. Gratitude and an honest compliment. The best and worst goodbye of Andrew’s life.</p><p>Andrew takes a minute now to just dwell on the physical evidence of Neil: his body heat along Andrew’s side, the expansion and contraction of his breaths under Andrew’s arm, the weight of his head on Andrew’s shoulder.</p><p>“You survived,” Andrew says, reminding himself as much as Neil. “You came back.”</p><p>“And I’ll stay,” Neil says.</p><p>Andrew’s hand tightens on Neil’s hip. “And you’ll stay,” he agrees, and presses his mouth in a not-quite-kiss to the top of Neil’s head. Like Neil’s kiss to his palm, it is a gentler thing than Andrew would normally allow himself to have, but in the moment, it seems like the only thing to do.</p><p>Andrew must be correct, because Neil squirms happily against his side. Andrew makes a note to do that again in future. They have time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you, sevenimpossiblethings, for indulging me once again on my AFTG feels &lt;3</p><p>Come hang out with me on <a href="https://agreatperhaps12.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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